It certainly is difficult to teach your children to not do something they witness everyone around them doing. Adults now more than ever are caught lying on a daily basis. It may be a small tale, or it can develop into a very serious issue that every parent wants to avoid at all costs.
When you learn that your child has lied to you or to someone else, you must immediately nip it in the bud. Ask your child why they did not tell the truth and what made them turn to lying and use those replies to show them the correct way to handle the situation for future reference. Many times children do not want to hurt someone else’s feelings, which is also a very popular reason for many adults lying as well. That is a different form of lying rather than a child lying to get out of trouble, to make someone believe something that is simply not truthful or to lie to receive some form of personal gain. Teach your children what can happen as a result of lying frequently. Others including you, will not trust them in the future and they will also have difficulty remaining calm trying to remember what lies they told to whom. This can be a very severe personality trait if not handled accordingly when they are children. Imagine the person in your office or that neighbor that you always catch lying for no reason and how you frame your opinion of them. Would you want that for your children? Would you ever want others to think of your children as liars or as people that cannot be trusted as they get older? No, it would not be an ideal situation for you to be proud of them for at all. You must explain to them the repercussions of their actions if they continue to lie on a regular basis or even if they lie and do not seem to be aware of any guilt when they do it.
Many children lie to gain more friends or to receive a higher level of social acceptance with their peers. In some cases, it may be acceptable for you to allow your child to lie to their friends as teenagers when they are encountered with any peer pressure to drink alcohol or try drugs. In just about every other situation that can develop, it is not acceptable for your children to lie. Teach them the importance of being a trustworthy person and why it is crucial to always tell the truth. When you lie, you become more stressed out as you cannot handle the pressure and the guilt that comes along with lying making it even more worthless to engage in lying. It is much easier to tell the truth and explain that over and over again if you must to your children. Studies have shown that children that are not taught the importance of being honest at a young age have a very high rate of becoming untrustworthy adults at some point in their lives. Encourage your child to be honest and it will be one of the most important traits you will give them for life.
It is certainly something I do not want my child growing up doing. I say that a liar, a person who is not trustworthy is one of the worst kinds of people and no one you want to be friends with. You raised some good points in this article, many people do not write about things like this.
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